Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Introduction

For my entire
student life, I am always busy learning and learning. I read and write everyday
and get knowledge from the outside world. I barely think about how to manage
what I have learned and how to apply them in my future study and life. After the
first class of knowledge management, I found it was so fascinating because it
made me start thinking about my learning process. Just like this blog post, we can
go through the knowledge and reflect back what we have learned. Also I really
like the format of our class, I mean using facebook, twitter, scoop.it and
other social media. We are learning communication in a fast changing and high
technological mass media environment. There is no better way for us to study
and research the mass media than that we are part of what we are learning.

In this blog, first
I want to illustrate some of the main concepts we have talked about in class
such as big data and personal knowledge management. I think they are very
important and interesting. Then I want to talk about the book I have chosen for
my presentation, enabling knowledge
creation: how to unlock the mystery of tacit knowledge and release the power of
innovation, written by Nonaka et al. (2000). In the end, I want to talk
about some of the reflections I have for this course.

Two articles I
read from scoop.it about big data and algorithm are really interesting. One is
about IBM took the wraps off new data storage systems and software for
businesses struggling to manage Big Data stores and cloudify their file access.
(Pedro, 2013) Big data and cloud storage are really hot topics in nowadays. The
advent of so-called "big data" means that companies, governments and
organizations can collect, interpret and wield huge stores of data to an
amazing breadth of ends. (Taylor,
2012)

We are in a data
centered society. Society is built surrounding data more than people or real
building. Also we do not communicate with people by sending them messages
directly, but by modifying the environment around them. Building bigger more
capable storage systems is only part of IBM's strategy for tackling Big Data.
The tech titan wants to help organizations have less to store. (Taylor, 2012) The product
refresh is part of IBM's plan to bring once lofty IT projects, namely Big Data
and cloud computing, down to earth for more businesses. (Taylor, 2012)

"Big data and
cloud systems that were once only affordable to large enterprises are now
available to the masses. With these new systems, IBM is forging an aggressive
expansion of its Power and Storage Systems business into SMB and growth
markets," (Taylor,
2012)

The second article
is about team uses big data and algorithm to compete in the election campaign,
which is related to what professor Lévy had talked about in class about Obama’s
team in the election campaign. In the big data era, information is the
deadliest weapon and leveraging massive amounts of it is this era's arms race. (Jason,
2012) As part of the Obama administration's "Big Data Initiative,"
the Department of Defense launched XDATA, a program that intends to invest $25
million toward systems that analyze massive data sets in record time. (Jason,
2012) With more efficient number crunching, the U.S. military can funnel petabytes
of data toward cutting edge advances, like making unmanned drones smarter and
more deadly than ever. (Jason, 2012)

Sasha
Issenberg got a new book out, The Victory
Lab, and he’s been hitting the interview circuit informing viewers
political campaigns have officially embraced the age of big data, algorithmic
analysis, and behavioral science. (Jason, 2012)

Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)

Personal Knowledge
Management (PKM) is an individually created process. It is about how we can
manage to make sense of information and experience in our electronic surroundings.
(Harold, 2010) There are mainly 9 procedures in professor Lévy’s PowerPoint in
class about PKM.

Terms such as Filter
or Sense don’t adequately describe the sense-making process in PKM. We
are adding value (and context) to information so that we can later retrieve it
and perhaps use it. Whatever we make transparent is value-added information for
others, especially if we do it consciously and well. (Harold, 2010)

The image below
shows an expanded description of sense-making in the context of PKM.

Enabling Knowledge Creation: how to
unlock the mystery of tacit knowledge and release the power of innovation,
Nonaka et al. (2000)

We have learned a
lot about Nonaka in this semester. What he talks about in this book are mainly
five knowledge creation steps and five knowledge enablers. Actually this book
is like the follow-up to Nonaka’s another book, The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the
Dynamics of Innovation. It is our strong conviction that knowledge can not
be managed, only enabled. Since the publication of The Knowledge-Creating
Company by Nonaka and Takeuchi in 1995, the concept of knowledge as competitive
advantage of a firm has been drawing considerable attention from the corporate
world and management academics. (Gallen & Tokyo, 1999)

In his previous
book, the five enablers for knowledge creation within a company are vision, strategy,
structure, system, and staff. In the new book, the enablers developed into instill
a vision, manage conversations, mobilize activists, create the right context,
and globalize local knowledge, which I think are more concrete and practical.
As he discussed in the book, there are three pitfalls in the knowledge
management process: rely on easily detectable, quantifiable information; devote
to the manufacture of tools; and depend on a knowledge officer. So he is moving
from knowledge management to knowledge enabling and knowledge creation, which
includes facilitation relationships and conversations as well as sharing local knowledge
across and organization. (Nonaka, Von Krogh, & Ichijo, 2000)

Conclusion

Personal knowledge
management skill is very helpful in workplace or in society. It will help
workers make sense of, and learn from, the constant stream of information that
they encounter from social channels both inside and outside the organization. People
with better PKM skills, an ability to create higher value information, and a
willingness to share it, will become more valued members in their professional
networks.